WP: Hussein's Weapons May Have Been Bluff

[kskiska]

Official Is Prepared To Address Issue Of Iraqi Deception

By Walter Pincus and Dana Priest

With no chemical or biological weapons yet found in Iraq, the U.S. official in charge of the search for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction is pursuing the possibility that the Iraqi leader was bluffing, pretending he had distributed them to his most loyal commanders to deter the United States from invading.

Such a possibility is one element in the interim report that David Kay, who heads the 1,200-person, CIA-lead team in Iraq, will describe before the House and Senate intelligence committees on Thursday, according to people familiar with his planned testimony.

In particular, Kay has examined prewar Iraqi communications collected by U.S. intelligence agencies indicating that Iraqi commanders -- including Ali Hassan Majeed, also known as "Chemical Ali" -- were given the authority to launch weapons of mass destruction against U.S. troops as they advanced north from Kuwait.

(snip)

David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security and a former United Nations weapons inspector who has been in contact with Iraqi scientists since the war, said: "The idea of deployment and the authority to launch was very solid. But it's now being looked at as possibly misinformation or that they were playing with us," he added.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25416-2003Sep30.html

[madrchsod]

1. so it seems

we went to war with little or no hard intelligence on what they had. we rushed into bagdad without knowing what we would face. well that`s got to go down as a major blunder in american military history.

[UpInArms]

2. giving the village idiot the power

to "pre-emptively strike" was the most stupid, inane, assinine, ridiculous, ignorant, disgusting things that our congress has ever done.

It makes me ashamed to be a citizen of this country. :(

[DemCam]

18. And they better not be gettin' away

with it. I just hope we have enough folks who will hang in there and flog these sumB's with it.

Say over and over until it can't be swept away

[Zerex71]

20. It's all a lie.

And the sooner the American public wakes up about it, the better off they'll be. All of this now is just parsing words, playing word games, because they can't very well come out and say that they lied - even though they did - but it will be/would be politically disastrous. Iraq was never any kind of threat to us, never has been, and never will. But now that they are backed into a corner, they're going after the highly predictable, "Hmm, we were lied to! Let's get to the bottom of this!" angle. Furthermore, why with the world's largest intelligence operation megaconglomerate (FBI-CIA-NSA-NSC) did they rely on paying some local yokels in Iraq for information? Apparently they don't have that much faith in their own intelligence infrastructure so they went the old-fashioned way (if they even did).

The lies need to stop. I'm not buying their excuses "that the invasion was justified but maybe we were lied to". People, keep your eyes on the ball here - BushCo was wrong to invade, they know they were wrong to invade, and this has been in the works for several years now. Invading Iraq is a not a new thing.

[calimary]

23. Uh, I think it's called playing Poker.

It sure makes sense to me. The intelligence community wasn't falling for it, but the PNACers and bushies sure did. DEAR GOD do we have stupid people in charge!

Saddam was just a master poker player. But who wouldn't want to continue to be PERCEIVEFD as a threat after having actually been defanged by the UN inspectors and sanctions? After all, he did have a carefully-crafted image to protect, to the world, and also to his fellow Arabs.

Our darling "leaders" were taken in by a f-ing POKER GAME.

[DrBB]

3. Let's see, I think I first proposed this in January 2003

Maybe it was even December 2002. Nor was I the first by any means. And I didn't even have to go to war and spend 100s of billions of $$$ to figure it out, either. What's W's excuse?

[bpilgrim]

4. if he was BLUFFING... why did he let inspectors in?

kinda tipped his hand didn't he?

guess that it ain't easy being a neo-con these days ;->

will the american people accept this as an answer :shrug:

peace

[NNN0LHI]

5. He even offered to let the CIA in if Junior didn't believe the inspectors

An offer that Bush quickly turned down. Yea. He sure bluffed the heck out of 'em alright? </scratching head>

Don

[bpilgrim]

6. U2 fly overs as well...

it was ALL about the OIL and PNAC and the WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING :bounce:

thank GORE he invented the internet :evilgrin:

peace

[Paschall]

7. French media claimed the US had six spy satellites trained on Iraq...

...full time for months, at least from Sept. 02 till the invasion.

Mobile labs? Booby-trapped moustaches? No prob. Ya want an 8x10?

[Must_B_Free]

10. Not ALL about OIL and PNAC

It was about the contracts too.

Remember when everything was "done blowed up real good"?

It was dubbed "Mission Complete".

Now they have opened the storefront.

Notice the unusual %100 ownership available to foreign businesses...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=68&ncid=68&e=1&u=/nyt/20030930/ts_nyt/washingtoninsidersnewfirmconsultsoncontractsiniraq

[gulliver]

12. I'm scratching my head too.

Hussein got on American national TV too if I recall and said something like, "We have no weapons of mass destruction. Are these things you can hide in your pocket?" (Paraphrasing, but in that vein.) In other words, he was saying that he didn't have them, and saying it very clearly. A bluff is when you say something that isn't true.

This reeks of Bush-spin to me.

[dudeness]

8. let the spin begin..

he (saddam) didn't really have them (wmd)..but he pretended to have them..and although many "experts"..blix..ritter..etc etc etc..said he didn't have them..the coalition of war criminals ..just said fuck it we wanna kick ass..this is classic orwell this crap..

[rman]

9. the UN did find WMDs in Iraq though, years ago

that's why there are none now.

But god forbid the WP saying something positive about the UN.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

11. Do a Google search on Katherine Graham & CIA...

+"Katherine Graham" +CIA

...you may be interested in the information that you find.


You may also be interested in this investigative article on Bob Woodward:

<http://www.webcom.com/ctka/pr196-woodward.html>


One more search string for you to run:

+"Operation Mockingbird"

[Devils Advocate NZ]

13. False Flag...

This may be unpopular to note, but what we are talking about here is intercepted communications. Israel has been accused in the past of setting up false-flag operations, notably in Libya, to plant transmitters that broadcast false orders.

In the case of Libya the accusation was that special transmitters were planted that seemingly broadcast Libyan Government orders to terrorist groups, resulting in US interceptions that led the CIA to believe that Libya was actively involved in terrorism.

If that accusation was true, it could very well be that these interceptions from Iraq are the same kind of Israeli operation, escpecially as the very idea is so absurd on its face.

Why the hell would you want to PRETEND you have WMD when the entire justification for going to war against you is WMD? You are basically saying "Come and invade us!" - which is a far more likely thing for the Israelis to do. They wanted Iraq neutralised, and unless there was evidence of WMD, it might not have happened. So, they provided the "evidence".

It's just a theory based on past allegations, but doesn't it make more sense than the Bush cabal version of events?

[LevChernyi]

17. Why does a cat raise the hair on his back

Saddam had a complicated game to play. He feared (very rightly so) that if it was clear just how defenseless he was he was inviting attack and possibly not just from the United States.

On the one hand he didn't want to hand Washington and London an excuse they had clearly been chomping at the bit for and on the other if there could be some doubt he could still use it for a bluff deterence.

This isn't to shoot down the idea of false-flag operations, that is quite a credible explanation also but the idea that it wouldn't make one bit of sense for the Iraqi's to issue false orders on his own to at bare minimum make sure that our troops were in hot ass, visibility restricting MOPP suits and scared to death doesn't hold up. It's what any competant commander would have done.

[Bandit]

19. My question would be if he ever had them why didn't he use them?

We fought his Army in 1991 and he had every opportunity to retaliate at that time and to defend his armies. If he was such a dastardly fellow who would launch on a moments notice, and even use them against his own people because of his hatreds, why didn't he? I think there has been an awful lot of propaganda put forth and people suck it up as gospel. IMO he was a petty dictator with allusions of grandeur but without any means. If all that has been reported about him was true he would have launched something against Isreal in a heartbeat. It is ALL a bunch of Bunk . It is about OIL and Power and nothing else.

[Devils Advocate NZ]

24. Not when being "big" was the reason for being attacked.

This situation is more akin to the grovelling that a dog does when approached by the alpha male in the pack. If a lower ranked dog appears to be a threat, the alpha male will attack him, but if that same dog crouches near the ground and curls himself up, he will appear smaller and submissive and the alpha dog won't attack.

In this case, the US was shaping to attack because Iraq was perceived as a threat. It is silly to think that appearing to be MORE of a threat would reduce the desire to attack. What Iraq was doing publically was the equivalent of grovelling and curling up in the dog world - he told everyone who would listen that he no longer had weapons of mass destruction. He invited in inspectors, he even invited the CIA itself! He was grovelling before the alpha dog.

If your idea was correct, then he would have been publically bragging that he had these weapons and that he would use them if attacked. By sending mixed messages all he could accomplish was the reduction of the power of BOTH arguments. He would have looked weak, yet mildly dangerous at the same time - no major threat, but just enough to justify the attack.

Whatever can be said of him, Hussein was NOT stupid. If he had decided to go the bluff route he would not have announced his weakness to the world. If he had decided to go the bluff route he would not have complied with UN requirements such as the handing over of the report on his WMD. If he had decided to go the bluff route he would not have invited the people he was trying to fool to come and have a look for themselves.

Nope, Hussein was a dictator, but he was a smart dictator. He would have known that it wouldn't work.

On edit: Actually, I think North Korea is a good example of the bluff ploy. They either have no, or very few nuclear weapons, but they are puffing themselves up to appear to be extremely dangerous. They are "bragging" about their nukes, and they are threatening all and sundry in an attempt to seem more powerful.

What North Korea is doing is the puffed-up cat ploy, what Iraq was doing was the lower-ranked dog ploy.

[et in Arcadia ego...]

14. I guess the Cheney/Rove Dept of Misinformation has been had

by the Soddy/Osama Dept of Misinformation. We've gone from a Superpower to a Stuporpower under Bush and his cronies.

[w4rma]

15. Doonesbury

http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20030923

[aquart]

16. Saddam was bluffing and our intelligence services were so inept

they didn't have a clue?

Therefore Bush is innocent, hang the CIA?

Somebody better hang for this. I'll let the big boys fight for the honor.

[otohara]

21. Man With Flintstone Army

able to dupe intelligence agencies all over the world. Hard to believe, just like everything else they come up with.

[LeftIsBest]

22. Yeah that's it

Saddam duped the CIA and all of our intelligence agencies. He also duped the UN even though we knew for a fact, as stated by many of the Bush admin many times, that he had WMD. We knew for a FACT, our intelligence was right. But now for some odd reason maybe we didn't know.

Yeah come on guys, let's give Bush a chance... he's only responsible for one of the biggest lies in history letting innocent iraqis and americans and others die in vain so that he can fatten his pockets with oil money. Corruption, defiance, lack of respect for humanity and total greed is okay isn't it? Let's just give him a chance and vote for Bush next year. I think it's in our best interests that this situation gets worse.

Can you tell i'm a little upset????

[leesa]

25. So what part of Saddam saying Iraq had no WMD was deceptive?

Republicans are pathological liars